The Automobile Club of Egypt

SALEHA

“Are those ballet shoes dyed?” Miss Suad said tersely.

I looked at her in silence. I was trying my best not to cry. After a moment, Miss Suad repeated the question, louder this time, “Answer me! Those ballet shoes have been dyed, haven’t they?”

Choking back my tears, I answered feebly, “Yes, Miss Suad.”

She looked away and waved me off.

“All right. Get back in line.”

At that moment, I hated Miss Suad from the bottom of my heart. I hated her because she kept on about a completely trivial matter. I hated her because she had made me put pressure on my father, made him even more aware of his poverty, and only then dismisses it all as nothing. Had she punished me, expelled me from the class, that would have been better. Instead, she just wanted to come across as Miss Compassionate, having already called attention to our poverty. Now, she could just let me off to take my place in the line. Back to my place I dragged my feet along in those awful dyed ballet shoes, almost falling over myself in anger and embarrassment.

After that day, being at school felt like a festering wound. I tried to forget my pain by studying as hard as I could. That was the only way I could help my father, as Kamel had said. I would be first in the class and show him that all his sacrifice had not been in vain. I would lock my bedroom door and spend hours studying, but my zeal for learning had acquired a rather bitter taste. In some way, I was taking revenge. I would do well in my lessons in order to affirm my existence. It was true that we were so poor that my father could not pay the school fees or buy the ballet shoes, but I was cleverer than all my classmates put together. I was top of the class in our midyear exams. As I handed my report certificate to my father for him to countersign, a strange feeling came over me, as if I had just run a huge distance and was now standing there panting. My father smiled as he picked up his pen. Without saying a word, he got up and put his hands on my shoulders, “Saleha! I’m so proud of you. I hope God lets me live long enough to see you teaching at university.”

“Why do you think I’ll end up teaching in a university?”

“I don’t know. I can just imagine you giving lectures to the students.”

His words touched me, and I agreed enthusiastically, “Then you will see me teaching at university one day, I promise.”

I continued studying my heart out and was top of the class at the end of the year too. During the summer holiday, I didn’t ask my father for pocket money or to take me on outings as I used to do. I was happy to stay at home, helping my mother and waiting for Kamel to come home at night. Then we would talk for a long time. Kamel was the person who understood me best in the whole world. I loved chatting with him. He would talk about anything with me: politics, art, literature. He used to tell me excitedly, “Egypt is a great country, Saleha, but it has not seized the moment. The Occupation has kept us all down, but if we expel the English, we can build a strong new democratic country.”

He used to read classical and modern verse aloud to me. I loved to listen to him explaining the love poems. I’ll never forget certain verses of Andalusian poetry. I adored the one that read:

If my sin is allowing love to be my master, then all nights of love are sin,

I repent of the sin, but when God forgives me, for you I atone.

Could a man love a woman so much? As Kamel was explaining the verse to me, my imagination was set loose. Should a man ever love me to that extent, I would grant him my body and soul. I would be ready to live and die for him. I was by nature excitable, subject to wild emotions and mood swings. Sometimes I felt cheerful for no reason, but mostly I just felt depressed and would lock myself in my bedroom and cry. Then I started having dreams every night, but when I woke up, I could never remember what they were. Every last trace of them would disappear from my memory, leaving me sad and gloomy. Then the same dream started recurring two or three times a week. It is strange that a person can have the same dream again and again, but it was even stranger that I could remember the details of this one. I can still recall it with astonishing clarity. It starts off with me walking between two rows of trees in a beautiful park. Wherever I look, I can see pretty flowers in all colors, the smell of jasmine everywhere. I feel like I don’t have a worry in the world. Then my father suddenly appears from a side path; wearing a clean white galabiyya, he looks as relaxed and carefree as he did in his youth. His white teeth glisten as he smiles and holds his hand out to me, saying, “Come with me, Saleha.”

I feel enveloped in a sense of security as I take his hand and feel its warmth. He pulls me along behind him, down the side path. I am laughing, hoping that I can stay with him forever. He stops between the shadow of two trees, smiles and says,

“Look at me.”

Then I notice that his left ear is missing, and I scream in terror, but he just whispers calmly, “Don’t worry, Saleha. I’m all right.”

I point at his missing ear and try to speak. I try to tell my father that his ear has disappeared, but I cannot get my throat to utter a sound. He puts his arms around me and leans over to kiss my head, and as I feel his lips touching my forehead, I wake up.